I Know What Lurks In Your Lusting Heart
by katilla
Summary: What exactly happened when Anna Valerious was abducted by Aleera? What secret is Anna desperately hiding from the others?


_I know what lurks in your lusting heart…._

Anna awoke, eyes yet frozen shut, to a mournful howling all around and above her. It was not the cry of any man or animal, of course, but of the wind in icy lamentation.

"_Woe…"_ the wind seemed to weep. "_Woe are we…"_

"Yes," Anna murmured, for she, too, was lost to woe, her brother – the only remaining member of her family – having passed away just moments…

_Dear God, where am I!_

Anna's heart thundered with sudden realization. _This was not home_. Struggling in vain to open her weary eyes, the throbbing ache in her skull served as a jarring reminder of the seconds before her world went black. It was _his_ remaining bride who had dealt the blow, was it not? The pain that lingered even now was enough to keep Anna in place where she lay but something else held her still – something beyond physical. A kind of clouding, almost, over her very will.

"Anna," said a man's familiar voice so soft as to be barely audible above the mournful wind.

It was _he_. A tremor of fear and a confusing mix of other emotions darted through her heart like cold knives.

"Anna," the voice repeated, and, suddenly, the ethereal weight upon Anna's eyes was lifted. "Why must you always fight?"

Anna saw that she lay upon a dust-enshrouded bed in a narrow room that had not likely been entered by anyone _living_ for ages. Cobwebs served for tapestries, and a trellis of ice framed the open window. There was an unmistakable odor of decay about the place, but she could not speak her revulsion.

Count Dracula's pale, chiseled countenance hovered into view above her, his eyes boring into her own. She was unable to answer his question. He didn't _wish_ for her to answer.

He smiled in a cruel sort of way.

"Oh, my love," mocked the vampire master. "Have you already forgotten me?"

"You!" Anna blurted, surprised by her renewed ability to speak. "You are the reason my brother is dead! You're the reason my entire family is dead!"

Hot tears stung her frozen cheeks and again her lips were paralyzed.

Dracula, unfazed by his prisoner's wrath, issued a low chuckle and rose from where he knelt.

"You have only your family to blame for their own…unfortunate…demise," he said coldly. "Your family… and yourself."

He strolled casually to the window and gazed at the night.

"I have killed many men," he said softly. "I have found ecstasy in their agony and have taken their blood for my wine. It is a curse that I'm forced to live such a way, but I must admit…"

His words fell on the air like icy drops as he turned to look upon his horrified prisoner without expression.

"…I have grown to enjoy it."

In a flash of an instant he was kneeling by Anna's side again. She was accustomed to his trickery, but even so could not restrain the shudder that passed through her as he traced the outline of her jaw with his cold, ivory finger. It was with disgust that she understood her shudder was from forgotten desire…not of the hatred in which she had schooled herself.

"But for so long I would not bring harm to your family," Dracula continued, withdrawing from her. He laughed. "I even protected them at times! Why?"

Anna's anger was quickly replaced with a feeling of shame she thought she had long suppressed.

"WHY?" her captor demanded as her lips unlocked themselves again.

"I don't know," she lied.

"Because I loved you!" Dracula roared. "_Because I loved you…"_

Tears of a different kind trickled from Anna's eyes.

"No you didn't," she cried softly. "How dare you try to…"

"Remind you?" he hissed. Something akin to pain flickered briefly in his unholy eyes.

Anna closed her own eyes shook her head in denial despite the telling tears. She would not go back to that place in her heart. She would not remember those days…those feelings… the disgrace…

"Oh, Anna. You deceive yourself most of all," said the vampire with a heavy sigh.

"No matter," he said bitterly. "You will hear the truth from the one about whom you deceive yourself the most."

He returned to the window, his boots producing commanding taps upon the stone floor.

"You loved me once," he said as he stared emptily at the stars. "Only the devil knows what fueled our forbidden love, but it existed nonetheless, and that you cannot deny."

"I don't want to hear—" Anna began before she was halted again by her captor's strange power.

Dracula continued.

"So many nights I risked peril to see you. Oh, the countless times I could feel you calling for me, and I came to you! Always!"

He turned and studied Anna, who was trying her best to smother the memories Dracula brought up in her mind. It was all for naught. She had no power against him; she was the weakest Valerious and always had been.

"No, you don't wish to remember those days, do you?" Dracula spat. "Oh, but you will, Anna. MY Anna. You will…"

And the memories flooded Anna's thoughts as vividly as if she were reliving them. She was twenty and clinging to him, her face buried in the barrel of his chest as they hid in the shadows of her bedchambers. He was stroking her spirals of auburn hair and whispering to her that she belonged to him, and he would take her away from the despair forever if only she would let him. But she would not let him.

"Do you not despair as well, Vladislaus?" she had cried, nearly forgetting that someone might hear her.

"Yes," he had answered. "But if you were with me…"

The vision shifted and she saw herself lying in his embrace. He was placing light kisses upon her neck, trailing down to her bare shoulder when - in one swift movement - he drew a cut upon her shoulder with his sharpest nail. A tiny crimson river trickled down her skin, but she wasn't disturbed. In fact, she was sighing in ecstasy as her lover kissed the blood away. It was the deepest expression of love for a vampire, he told her. Were she like himself, he could show her rapture like no mortal man could ever imagine…

"STOP!" Anna screamed in reality, fighting and at last winning against the spell that kept her silent. "I don't want to see anymore! Please!"

The visions faded away and she found herself again in the dismal chamber.

Dracula was beside her once more, cruelly observing as she wept uncontrollably.

"I did love you, Vladislaus," she sobbed. "God, I loved you… but it was wrong! My family…"

"Your family's mission was to destroy me, I know," said Dracula. "But that is not why you abandoned me. And securing your family's place in heaven is not why you continue their mission even now. It is your dignity – no, your vanity – which you hope to spare, Anna."

She could say nothing, but not because of any spell. She knew the vampire's words were true. Her shame was almost unbearable, but none compared to what she felt knowing that her family was watching from wherever they were. She could not give up, now, and God help her if anyone else should know…

"For a moment, I thought of telling you my secrets…of handing myself to you like an exhausted fugitive," Dracula said, rising to his feet and moving toward the iron door that sealed the room. "But no. I will have my vengeance. And I will have you. I will force you to watch the destruction of your beloved _Van Helsing_ – and of your _world_ when at last my plans are complete."

"No…" Anna cried. "I beg you…"

"But I must thank your family!" he continued, lingering in the doorway with a sneer. "Your father and brother were instrumental in my…experiments."

And with that, he slammed the heavy door and was gone. Anna wanted to scream and curse herself at the same time but found she was again unable to utter a sound. Her vision began to blur and darken. All feeling escaped her body as she slipped once more into the net of unconsciousness.

_Forgive me... _she thought as her senses left her._ Forgive me…_


End file.
